Glendale Internet company bought for $50 million

Robert Shaffer

THORNYCROFT -- SpeedyClick Corp., a Glendale company that operates a

entertainment and humor Web site, has been acquired by a Seattle-based

e-commerce company for $50 million.

ShopNow.com Inc. bought the company, which is about a year old, for $3

million in cash and $47 million in ShopNow.com stock.

Shahab Emrani, who founded the business with $500,000 and a partner,

said the deal is a good one for the company.

“They needed a presence in Southern California, and they will help us

expand,” he said.

According to PC Data Online Reports, more than 3 million people

visited SpeedyClick.com during the month of October.

“We will provide them traffic, and they will help us make SpeedyClick

very big,” he said.

The business will stay in Glendale, Emrani said, and no jobs will be

affected.

ShopNow.com is a company that sells products through computers. The

Web site has 40,000 merchants selling millions of products in 28 shopping

categories.

SpeedyClick.com is consistently ranked among the top five most popular

entertainment Web sites, and last month was the most visited site by

women during one week.

Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic

Development Corporation, said mergers and acquisitions could be the

future of the Internet.

“What you have now is almost a stampede of people creating Internet

sites,” he said. “Eventually, you are going to see only mega-sites and

niche sites, and not much in between.”

Kyser said the e-commerce business ShopNow.com is taking a risk

acquiring the game-site SpeedyClick.com.

“Moving away from your core business can be tricky,” he said.

Emrani is convinced the deal was a good one and is not bashful about

his goals of making the site the most entertaining in cyberspace.

“We are a fun portal,” he said. “Now, we will become the fun portal.”